How to buy books online... (amazon.co.uk)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	amazon.co.uk
Date:	14/08/00 (26 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quick delivery, loads of books

Disadvantages: Too many books? Sometimes mistakes are made

This is dead easy... How to buy books online! Open your web browser, type www.amazon.co.uk in the URL bar, hit enter. This opinion deals with the book selling part of Amazon, although they have expanded to sell Cds, DVDs, videos and computer software.

I'm surprised there are any other online book vendors out there because, quite frankly, Amazon are fantastic!

The best savings come from buying more expensive books in larger quantities (they seem to offer a percentage off the book price rather than price each item seperately, coupled with the postage savings of buying mutltiple items)

The site I found extrdemely easy to navigate with a good search engine (you can search by title, author, ISDN, or even topic!) and a wide range of books (of any type! I was surprised to see some comic books in there!) with their own review systems so that other people who bought the book can post their thoughts. If you are the first person to rate a book, you are entered into a draw for a monthly prize which encourages customers to advise other customers.

Delivery times were quick - often next day, never more than about two days, unless an item was out of stock, then it was the day after the item came in stock. The web site always advises on what delivery times should be, although I'm unaware of how often the web site is updated.

Another point worth making is that they also recommend items to you, part of this is done by keeping an eye on what you have bought previously, so if you say buy a lot of computer books, then they'll recommend computer books to you with more success than they would recommend say, Cds.

Their prices aren't that much cheaper than the High Street once you take postage into account, but as I've stated in my Blackstar opinion, I'm prepared to pay the extra for the peace of mind that the customer service level affords.

Good automated emailing keeps you informed along the way until yo
ur order has been despatched, leaving you in no doubt as to the status of your order. Returns are dealt with quickly and easily with no quibbles.

My only problem to date was when a book was delivered in a damaged state (probably Royal Mails fault rather than anything else), and so I returned it myself (costing me about £7 in postage) yet I've still to see this £7 almost 6 months later (admittedly, I only raised the subject once myself!).

**Update 1/3/2001**
I've just accepted a package today from Amazon - a text book I needed for university. Upon opening the package, I found out that they had sent the wrong book, however, less than five minutes later, having spoken to a girl on the phone (using an free 0800 acess number) I was told that a new order had been entered, and I'd been given a freepost address to return the other book to! Excellent! If they can get the proper book out to me in the next 48 hours, I'll be very impressed indeed.

So, all in all, an excellent service all round!

**Update 12/3/2001**
The book finally arrived, but not until the Tuesday (about 3 days after I was expecting it) - the order screen stated that it was ready to ship for about 3 days before it actually did, so I am confused as to why it took them so long to send the book out when it was marked as ready to ship literally 3 hours after my phone call. But, apart from the book taking a few more days than I was expecting, I think that Amazon have been very helpful in this matter.

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